Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1887-08-19
The Illinois r. r. Slaughter.

Out from PeOrla, ILL.,, Weunesuay
evening sped special train with fif
teen coaches, crowded with over nine
hundred gay. happy hearted exeur-
sionists for Niagara. Just before
midnight, as drawn by two engines
it passed through Chatsworth on the
Toledo, Peoria Il Western 4. r.,
at rapid speed, the engineer saw to
his horror burning bridge ahead.
Death, and dreadful death, was
there, iuexorable. Into the fire and
down through the bridge the train
plunged in an awful wreck. The
cars telescoped and over one hundred
people were killed outright aud four
times that number injured.
The work of rescue was a hard and
brave one by the survivors. The
best description of the calamity was
the special to the Chicago Times, as
follows:
All the railway horrors in the his.
tory of this country were surpassed
three miles East of Chatsworth last
night, when an excursion train on the
Toledo, Peoria and Western Road
dropped through burning bridge
and over 100 people were killed and
four times that number were more OF
less badly injured. The train was
composed of six sleeping cars, six day
coaches and chair cars and three bag
gage cars. 1t was carrying $50 pas
sengers, all excursionists, and was
bound for Niagara Falls. The train
had been made up all along the line
of the Toledo, Peoria and Western
road, and the excursionists hailed
from various points in central Illinois,
the bulk of them, however, coming
from Peoria. Some ofthe passengers
came from Canton, Ell Paso, Wash
ington and. in fact, all stations along
the line; some from as far West as
Burlington and Keokuk, la. A spec.
ial and cheap rate had been made for
the excursion, and all sorts OF people
took advantage of it. When the
train drew out of Peoria at O'Clock
last evening it was loaded to its ut
most capacity Every berth in the
six sleepers was taken, and the day
cars carried sixty people each. The
train was so heavy that two engines
were hitched to it, and when it pass.
ed this place it was an hour and ball
behind time. Chatsworth, the next
station East of here. is six miles of,
and the run was made in seven min
utes; so the terrible momentum OF
those fifteen coaches and two engines
shooting through space at the rate OF
q mile minute can be understood.
No stop was made at Chatsworth,
and on and on the heavy train with
it's living freight, sped through the
darkness of the night.
Three miles East of Chatsworth is
a little slough, where the railroad
crosses dry run about ten feet deep
and fifteen feet wide. Over this was
stretched an ordinary wooden trestle
bridge, and as the excursion train
came laundering down on it what
was the horror of the engineer on the
front engine when he saw the bridge
a-fre. Right up before his eyes leap
ed the bright flames, and the next
instant be was among them. There
was no chance to stop. Had there
been o warning it would have taken
a half mile to stop that on rushing
mass of wood, iron and hnman lives,
and the train was within 100 yards of
the red .tougued messenger of death
before they flashed their fatal signals
into the engineers face. But he
passed over in safety, the first engine
keeping the rails. AS it went over
the bridge fell beneath it. and it could
only have been the terrific speed OF
the train which saved the lives of the
engineer and his fireman.
FORTY PERSONS INSTANTLY KILLED.
But the next engine went down,
and istantly the deed of death was
done. Car crashed into car, coaches
piled on top of one another, and III
the twinkling of an eye nearly forty
people found instant death and fifty
more were 80. hurt they could not live.
AS for the wounded, they were every
where. Only the sleeping coaches
escaped, and as the startled and half
dressed passengers came tumtling out
of them they found such a scene of
death as is rarely witnessed and such
work to do that it seemed as if humans
were utterly incapable. 1t lacked
but five minutes of midnight. Down
in the ditch lay the second engineer,
McClintock, dead, and Fireman Ap'
plegate badly injured. On top were
piled the three baggage cars, one on
top of another like child's card house
after he had swept it with his hand
Then came the six day coaches.
They were telescoped as cars never
were before, and three of them were
pressed into just enough space for one
The second car had mounted of its
trucks, crashed through the car ahead
of it, crushing the woodwork aside
like tinder, and lay there resting on
the tops of the seats, while every pas
sengers in the front car was laying
dead or dying underneath. Out of
that car but four people came alive
On top of the second car lay the third,
and its bottom was smeared with the
blood of it's victims.
The three other cars were not bad
ly crushed, but they were broken and
twisted in every conceivable way and
every timber and beam represented a
crushed human frame and broken
bone. Instantly the DIR was filled
with cries of the wounded and the
shrieks of those about to die. The
groans of men and the screams of wo-
men united to make an appalling
sound and above oil could be heard
the agonizing cries of children, as in
some instances they lay pinned along
side their dead parents. And there
was another terrible danger yet to be
met. The bridge was still burning
and the wrecked cars were lying on
and around the iercely burning
embers. Everywhere in the wreck
were wounded and unhurt men, wo-
men and children, whose lives could
be saved if they could be gotten out,
but whose death, and death in most
horrid form, was imminent.
rrcurINc THE FIRE WITH EARTH